Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday March 21, 2012 @01:52PM
from the inherit-the-wind-II dept.

Layzej writes "The Tennessee Senate has passed a bill that allows teachers to 'teach the controversy' on evolution, global warming and other scientific subjects. Critics have called it a 'monkey bill' that promotes creationism in classrooms. In a statement sent to legislators, eight members of the National Academy of Science said that, in practice, the bill will likely lead to 'scientifically unwarranted criticisms of evolution.' and that 'By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee's public schools, HB368 and SB893 would miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.'"

The Senate approved a bill Monday evening that deals with teaching of evolution and other scientific theories...

Well, there's your problem, right there. The overall concept of evolution is no longer a theory. Surely even the staunchest of Creationists must acknowledge the so called "short-term" evolution that gives us the ability to manipulate plants or breed wolves into dogs.

Yes, as with most fields, a long time ago there were sets of theories. Like prior to Watson and Crick, back when you had Darwinian Evolution, Larmarckian Evolution, etc. Not anymore though. You might have theories about very specific things in the field that might be impossible to prove -- like, say, what the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA) looked like -- but Evolution is no longer a theory. The field moves forward while Tennessee makes themselves look like idiots from some forgotten era.

I beg to differ. "Intelligent Design" implies that some level of intelligent forethought went into the eventual products of evolution. Saying "God guided the process" or otherwise suggesting that evolution can work in a deterministic fashion is utterly wrongheaded and unscientific, and it gives people the false impression that evolution, as a process, is in some way goal-oriented. But it isn't, and it never has been. You'd be surprised how many people believe evolution is about making less complex organisms into more complex ones, or making the next generation "better" in some objective way than the current one. They imagine it as an iterative improvement process, building toward something specific.

If people understood that evolution does not actually work that way, "Intelligent Design" would be a completely moot point.

You'd be surprised how many people believe evolution is about making less complex organisms into more complex ones, or making the next generation "better" in some objective way than the current one.

Ummm, the latter is exactly what evolution is. Mutations occur, the resulting changes are either propogated because they provide some objective benefit, removed from the system because they are detrimental, or become part of the background noise of genetic variation if they are neither harmful nor beneficial.

Mutations are not, by themselves, evolution. There needs to be some reason for the mututation to reproduce. From the all-encompassing unimpeachable source of all human knowledge [wikipedia.org]:

Charles Darwin was the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is a process that is inferred from three facts about populations: 1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, 2) traits vary among individuals, leading to differential rates of survival and reproduction, and 3) trait differences are heritable.[3] Thus, when members of a population die they are replaced by the progeny of parents that were better adapted to survive and reproduce in the environment in which natural selection took place. This process creates and preserves traits that are seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform.[4] Natural selection is the only known cause of adaptation, but not the only known cause of evolution. Other, nonadaptive causes of evolution include mutation and genetic drift.[5]

In the early 20th century, genetics was integrated with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics. The importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology. Moreover, previously held notions about evolution, such as orthogenesis and "progress" became obsolete.

The fossils are there. Go to your local museum and you'll see some of them. Darwin would be very impressed with the level of fossils we have now. Most animals that die are not fossilized. Really, it's a huge minority that get fossilized. It's impressive that we have as many as we do.

The only way to 'prove' to a lot of people who give the argument that you do that a specific creature evolved from another specific creature is to have a PERFECT fossil record that contains every individual between the first creature and the second. That will NEVER happen because of the physical reality that fossils are not common.

Interesting fact, if we DID have the fossil record from one individual to another, you would never see an instance where a mother could be classified as a different species from her child if you just looked at the two of them. The child would be slightly different from its mother. In fact, there is debate as to what species some of the fossils we have did belong to because of this. 'Species' when looking at fossil record just means that "this fossil is different enough from this fossil, that in order to classify them we give them a separate name." In reality, it wasn't like a monkey's ancestor had a human child, there were a TON of mutations that occurred in between, with each likely being minor changes that eventually diverged enough to become called a new species.

And to touch on ANOTHER point you said:
What is the average time for a mutation? It's a silly question because it's basically one generation, once you get into organisms with a large number of cells/genes. And, really, it's less than that. Every human zygote, for example, averages at over 120 mutations. Most of them do nothing, of course, but they are still mutations. And yes, there ARE thousands of mutations within any species (that has a large enough set of genes; single-celled organisms, for example, will have less total mutations than cardinals), most just aren't noticeable.

Now, maybe you meant what is the average time for a mutation that has a noticeable effect? The reason why THAT isn't an easy answer is because it varies and has varied so much. First, the larger a genome, the more likely there will be mutations. The more DNA pairs something has, the more likely it is that there will be mutations. The shorter the time from birth to reproduction in an individual of a species, the shorter the time between mutations. The more children an individual of a species has (either at once OR over the course of a lifetime), the greater the chance of a noticeable mutation. Add in the fact that some mutations would be noticeable with just a single change and others would require a large number of changes to be noticeable (and thus are less likely to occur because of randomness). Take all that, determine how those things actually affect the rates, apply that to every species that EVER lived on the planet, and you have the average time to a noticeable mutation. Now do you see why people 'avoid the question like the plague?' It's because it is too complicated to answer based on our current knowledge.

That's not evolution (or to clarify, "macroevolution"). That's natural selection, which I have often stated is not denied except by the truly obstinate.

I'm glad your clarified from something that is unequivocally wrong -- a single species undergoing changes in allele frequency is indeed evolution -- to a mere red herring.

Okay, so if what you'd call "microevolution" is something not denied except by the truly obstinate, and you are not such, then let me show you why you also should not deny "macroevolution".

You have a species. It can undergo "microevolution". This species is by twist of fate split into two separate populations that are unable to interbreed due to for example geographical barriers. Each of these two populations undergo their own "microevolution", but since they do not interbreed the changes are not shared with the other population. Over time, these two populations would diverge to the point where were they to be brought back together they would be incapable of interbreeding. They are now different species.

That's "macroevolution", done with nothing but the mechanism of "microevolution" which of course you're not so obstinate as to deny. But you can't deny one without denying the other, because they're the same thing. You're trying to drive a wedge into a gap that doesn't exist.

Its amazing that she could get a degree in biology without "believing" in evolution. It's a bit like a physicist that doesn't believe in gravity.
Next biology topic: Locusts only have four legs [biblegateway.com]!

Don't forget we should be teaching biblical Pi instead of heathen devil math.

"And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26

It amazes me that otherwise seemingly intelligent people will go stupid/blind/deaf in discussions of religion regardless of their position. An obvious and reasonable conclusion is that 9.54929659 cubits from brim to brim was rounded to ten and the circumference was thirty cubits, or that both values were rounded. To presume that ten cubits was exact and that the circumference was incorrect mathematically is not logical, but as it serves your purposes you choose to stick to that version in which a conflict exists between the Bible and math or science when it does not. If you read the entire chapter you will see that no fractions were used in any of the descriptions, so we can reasonably conclude that some of those values were rounded, it would be odd if every item mentioned was an integral number of cubits high, wide or deep.

You really should think these things through better. Yours is not even close to a reasonable argument, it is down there with arguments made by creationists and intelligent design advocates. There is no issue with the literal interpretation of that passage, and none that is necessarily inconsistent with science or math. There are hundreds of conflicts between statements in the Bible and science, but you are barking up the wrong tree on this one.

Its amazing that she could get a degree in biology without "believing" in evolution. It's a bit like a physicist that doesn't believe in gravity.
Next biology topic: Locusts only have four legs [biblegateway.com]!

For the specific example of the biology teacher - I don't care whether the biology teacher believes in evolution or not. I want a teacher who can present the evidence and the theory in a clear and interesting way, without getting preachy for either side of the debate.

So you believe that for someone to properly study Islam, they must believe in Islam? For someone to be a student of Greek gods and goddesses, the person must believe in those gods and goddesses?

I think my eighth grade teacher handled the question perfectly. When he introduced the topic he said we didn't have to agree with the theory but that to be educated people in the modern world we had to understand it. If I remember correctly, some (perhaps most) of the test questions started with the phrase, "According to the theory of evolution...".

Assuming that the evidence and the logic speak for themselves, the students will be able to decide for themselves so long as they have the evidence and the theory presented to them, so there is no need to get upset that the teacher isn't trying to force the students to believe in the theory - they can figure it out.

A better way to get a fundamentalist confused is to ask them "Who was created first, Adam and Eve or the animals?"

Tell them to check both the first and second chapter of Genesis. If they stop after the first, they will only have one answer. It cannot have hapened both ways, it must be one or the other (or neither), so therefore the Bible is not 100% true. At minimum one chapter or the other must be false. It could be that both are false, but they might burn you at the stake for saying that.

If you don't know the answer, it only takes a few minutes to read both chapters. Then follow up and ask 'Was Adam or Eve created first? Or, were they created at the same time?" (the answer is both. Adam was created first and they were created at exactly the same time).

Self consistency is not a strong point in the Bible. That is very strange because any scientist will tell you that the universe is amazingly self consistent. Any seeming paradoxes are usually signs that our understanding and knowledge is lacking. If Both the universe and the bible are both from the same author, you would think that they would show the same level of self consistency.

How do I know the Bible isn't 100% true? Because my Bible tells me so.

The only thing I can see in Genesis that is an absolute truth is near the start of chapter 2. The bit about the harvest being ready and not a man to be found. Any woman will confirm that when there is work to be done there is never a Man around:)

Given the general lack of intelligence, and the fact that their arguments change and adapt over time as new environmental conditions^W^W science comes up, you could almost say that the arguments evolve.

Perhaps creationism has a place in a course on logic (eg. ontological, prime mover etc). I think to ensure freedom of religion or at least to keep the schools free from a biased view of religion it needs to be not only from the christian standpoint and more of an academic course rather than just a "we are a christian society and this is what christian's should believe" kind of course. I see nothing wrong with teaching religion as part of history, logic/philosophy, etc. It is a massive part of society. Even atheists often point to religious objects (churches, vatican, paintings etc) as being some of the finest works of art. It would be a shame to ignore the background of everything and just look at the paintings as pretty pictures. So much of the field was controlled by the church funding it, people's rather dreary look at the human state etc that the (mostly Catholic) church instilled in people in the 14-19th centuries. Similarly with science: we can't ignore the fact that these ideas had huge impact as to how people view themselves in relation to the universe and that there are still a large number of people that reject the ideas outright, or would modify them to include that God controls evolution to serve His purpose.

Separating the church from the state doesn't necessarily everyone in the state needs to remain ignorant of things religious just that the state shouldn't be controlled by the church(shrine, temple, insert whatever name you use for whatever building you consider sacred). I think the state has no place to say which religion is right but teaching facts about a religion and its place in history and culture? No problem there IMHO.

There are classes on religion and that's where this stuff belongs. A class on science has no business talking about religion.

And really this whole freedom of religion is really just that the government shall establish no state religion. Not that religions should have free reign to do whatever the hell they want.

Not that this is even worth mentioning, but the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" which goes a bit further than just "we won't have a state religion" and says that we *won't* have any law that specifically establishes (endorses) a religion as the precedent for governing (or running a government school.)

When government can legislate due to religious emphasis- government becomes the religious authority.

You know what we'd have right now if government and religion were not seperate.

We'd have Pope Obama of America. Far right loonies often forget that if they had their way- Obama would get to dictate religion to them right now.

Combining religion and government all of a sudden must sound a lot less pleasing to them. If you want government to be able to pass laws on religion- you must accept the fact that that makes Obama the executive head of the American church.

The US has never been "a Christian nation". Which men "of faith" wrote in our freedoms?

Jefferson who rewrote the bible taking out the "superstitious nonsense". Perhaps Quincy Adams who we have letters that he wrote mocking Christianity and talking of it disdainfully. Perhaps George Washington who refused any religious solace on his deathbed and expressed that he didn't want a Christian burial service.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin- who we also have written evidence that he did not believe in a God still currently active in watching humanity.

Perhaps we're talking about the senate under the second president who unanimously signed the Treaty of Tripoli after it was read out (that included the words probably not verbatim "The United States Of America is and never has been a Christian nation").

The vast majority of those that "wrote-those freedoms" would be offended if you called them Christian.

The fact is- everyone should be allowed to worship however they darn please. But don't try fooling people or rewriting history to make it seem like it is a "recent-innovation" that this is a non-Christian country. Even Abraham Lincoln, the president responsible for preserving the union many years after the founding fathers wrote an essay exposing the evil of religion, specifically Christianity.

We are a secular nation. We should be a secular nation. Let people worship whatever god they want- but keep it out of politics and government. Remember the religious have the most to lose. If government and religion are not seperate- that means Obama is executive head of religion. You must recognise him as the authority in religion.

Is that what you want? It works both ways- even when a leftie non religious man is in power- he is still the head of religion in you dystopian view of the United States where religion and government are one.

A science class that doesn't teach the history of science is practically religion itself. You don't teach science (well) by listing a load of current theories. You start with simple theories and go through the observations and experiments that invalidated them. Creationism definitely has a place there, because that is what people believed. You start by explaining that people believed that species never changed, and then list some of the examples that disproved this. Then you go on to things like ring species that demonstrate that the concept of a species is itself somewhat flawed and that speciation is a gradual process.

Science is a process, and without teaching the history surrounding each step in the process it's very hard for students to distinguish it from dogma.

Be more careful with that word "believe". Science is most emphatically not about belief. Science is not a religion and takes nothing on faith. Science also does not claim to have all the answers. All of science is based on observable evidence, repeatable experiments, and logical deduction and modeling. I cringe a little every time I see that phrase "scientists believe" in reference to a hypothesis we think is likely true, or a theory, or some other bit of scientific thinking or uncertainty.

Last time I looked it up, textbooks still said "Theory of Evolution" not "Law of Evolution". In fact I've had many professors over the years argue even Newton's Law of Gravity should be renamed a Theory, since the misnamed "law" has been debunked by later discoveries over the centuries.

In science ALL things are theories, because we will never have a complete understanding and the theories are eventually proven wrong (or at least flawed). Maybe if we evolve into the Q we'll finally understand it all, but that's definitely not the case now.

The problem is that the word "theory" has different meanings to Scientists and Layperson. To a layperson, a theory is a guess as to how things are, often a guess with little to no evidence backing it up. To a scientist, a theory is an explanation that matches a set of data. This theory can be used to make predictions which will then either be proven true, thus supporting the theory, or shown to be false, thus causing the theory to be modified.

The Theory of Evolution has made many predictions and has even been wrong sometimes. Unfortunately for Creationists, it was wrong in small ways and the theory was easily modified to take these into account. The Theory of Evolution as it stands today might never reach the status of "Law", but it also is highly unlikely to be completely overturned. Of course, this doesn't stop Creationists from grabbing upon the scientific word "theory", applying the layperson definition, and touting this as proof that Evolution has no evidence supporting it.

I think you should go look up the definition of "scientific law". Nowhere does it claim to be an absolute truth, in fact that's not even remotely what it means. If your professors seriously argued changing Newton's Laws to theories, they don't understand the terminology either.

In fact, a law is not even really on the same continuum as a theory - a theory is an explanation for a phenomenon, and a law is just a statement of results *in specific circumstances*. A scientific law can be disproved, sure, but it makes no sense to be "demoted"...

That misunderstanding is one of the primary weapons of the anti-science creationists who try to introduce doubt where none really exists by claiming that "evolution is just a theory". In science not *all things* are theories, but certainly all *explanations* are theories (in various levels of certainty).

The National Academy of Science has a nice statement summarizing this:

Why isn't evolution called a law?Laws are generalizations that describe phenomena, whereas theories explain phenomena. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe what will happen under certain circumstances; thermodynamics theories explain why these events occur. Laws, like facts and theories, can change with better data. But theories do not develop into laws with the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the goal of science."

On the contrary, science has always touted the fact that everything it discovers as theory.
This allows people to attempt to disprove it until accepted.
So, things that we take as fact "sun is center of our galaxy", "earth is round", is now a proven theory. But in essence, still a theory.
It is one thing I have admired about the scientific community, always allowing scrutiny of the ideas and findings.
This is why I think the summaries counter arguments against the bill are the wrong way to go about it. I would challenge people to find proof against the theory.

Wikipedia puts it well. A physical law is a summary observation of strictly empirical matters, whereas a theory is a model that accounts for the observation, explains it, relates it to other observations, and makes testable predictions based upon it. Simply stated, while a law notes that something happens, a theory explains why and how something happens.

Also keep in mind Newton's "Law" of Gravitation is only a good approximation of low-mass behavior. When you say "Law of Nature" people assume graven in stone, unchanging and absolute. But that isn't what it means.

"Surely even the staunchest of Creationists must acknowledge the so called "short-term" evolution that gives us the ability to manipulate plants or breed wolves into dogs. " - the standard creationist reply to this would be that they accept "micro evolution" (natural selection and adaption) but that they don't accept "macro evolution" (the ability for one species to evolve into another). Scientifically, there's no meaningful distinction between the two - it's only a difference of degree, not kind.

Most creationists do not accept the existence of beneficial mutations. (They argue that adaption only brings out attributes that already have some preexisting genetic basis, and that no new beneficial alleles can be created)

When scientists say "theory" they mean something different than what most other people think of when they use the word. "Theory" is used in the "I'm pretty sure the thing I'm typing on is a keyboard, but I could be hallucinating and giving my cat, Whiskers, a backrub" sense. It's the best information that humans have, but we are humble enough to permit the idea that there is something unknown about the subject that could, if someday discovered by research, invalidate it.

It's correct to call evolution a scientific theory, people just don't understand why the word "theory" is used here and it gets misused into making evolution look less like "the only game in town."

on the absurd idea that the bible is literal in on all counts, infallible on all counts (usually specifically the KJV translation),

What makes it especially absurd is that KJV version differs the most from all the ancient sources used to translate from.

Fundamentalists like it better because the KJV altered the original text to avoid certain contradictions (like the fact that the source texts mention contradicting sources about who killed Goliath- KJV conveniently "corrects" what the source says to make it sound better - when mankind has to "correct" the source how can it be infallible?).

Actually, if you look into even those sources, there is evidence of errors and corrections and possibly(though surprisingly little) tampering to promote one or another specific theology. I really wish more Christians would be brave enough to examine the sources of what they believe. I think it makes better Christians not worse ones. And honestly if you are worried examining the history and context of what you believe will make you stop believing, you probably don't believe to start with, so nothing is lost.

Why do politicians think they know more than scientists about reaching biology? They're wrong on this one... to much science to say evolution happened and the only support the creationists have is one book that's proven to be mostly fiction. If Adam and Eve were the first humans, then who wrote the biblical story?

Not that I subscribe to Creationism, but your logic is flawed. By definition a story about some event cannot be written until after the event. So to say that somebody before Adam & Eve had to write the story about Adam and Eve is a flawed argument. Since the story of Adam and Even is not presented as a prophesy, but rather a story of what was, it was by definition written after the event (real or imagined).To put in other terms, nobody can write a story about your life until after you are born, and lived some portion of that life.

If, "I have mountains of observational evidence for a well considered theory, you have magic stories, therefore we should not teach your silliness in a classroom as if it resembles science.", is elitist... then at least it's well founded elitism.

Here's to hoping that this absurd bit of legislation opens the door for good teachers to finally, openly hammer these ridiculous superstitions in the classroom, without fear of reprisal.

You wanted your batshit theories in the classroom, and went as far as to use government intervention to get it there? Fine. Now you have to deal with having its long list of scientific inadequacies laid bare before your children.

Obviously it was designed for state sanctioned religious indoctrination in our schools, but it just might have a silver lining.

Just as math should be taught in math class and so on. If you want to teach religion in a class dedicated to the subject, I'm OK with that. But it would need to cover ALL religions and beliefs, which I think people would throw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits over.

That education chalk board picture where 2+2=5 has never been seemed so relevant.

Some day, I'm hoping that all these retarded laws get bitch slapped back. Is it just that I'm young or are these people become more shrill and outspoken about this kind of idiocy? I'm only 25 and I'm hoping this is just a phase before we inevitably tell them all the shut the hell up and move on with things.

The non-falsifiable argument gets tossed around a lot and has never been explained to my satisfaction.
1. Average temperatures are rising
2. The rise in temperatures is due to so called 'greenhouse gasses'.
3. The increase in greenhouse gasses is caused by human action.
All of the above seems falsifiable to me. As are the corollary items such as number 1 causing changes in weather, melting of ice caps etc.

Rising temperatures happened well before humanity existed. We've had global warming and global cooling and global staying the same for the entire history of the planet.

Or to make a similar argument, "Forest fires happen all the time from lightning strikes, so that forest fire cannot be due to me throwing my lit cigarette into a pile of dead leaves." Perhaps you can spot the fallacy when the same argument is placed in another context.

The question is, what observations would convince you that rising temperatures are due to natural variation, and not human activity (much less that they'll be catastrophic)?

Quite simply, identify the source of the natural variation and provide a plausible mechanism whereby it could produce such a large and prolonged increase in temperature. All this has been done for increased temperatures due to human CO2 emissions. We have the radiative physics, we have the calculation of the expected effect, we have the measurements of temperature changes, and it all matches. There are certainly plausible explanations for natural climate change in the past. If it's the sun (one of the sources of some past changes in climate), we should be able to detect a substantial change in solar output (but there isn't any). If it's CO2 from volcanoes, we should be able to show that the isotopic signature of the increased atmospheric CO2 matches that released by volcanoes (it doesn't). Etc.

So basically the "skeptics" (who become utterly credulous when it comes to any argument that reassures them that they don't have to worry about global warming) are asking us to believe:1. There is some unknown source of warming that has been responsible for warming in the past (even though there are plausible explanations of past warming in terms of mechanisms that demonstrably aren't present today), and that for some unknown reason has kicked in over the last century or so (but whatever it is, it's going to stop Real Soon Now), and2. There is some other unknown mechanism that prevents the warming that is predicted based on the physics of CO2 (and which coincidentally matches the measured warming) from taking place.

Sometimes people ask "what would it take to falsify the man-made global warming theory?". Well, basically it would require that our fundamental understanding of physics be wrong, because that's what the theory is based on. This fundamental physics has been scrutinized through scientific experiments for decades to centuries.

Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming also relies heavily on the existence of humans, and that's falsifiable too. However, the mere existence of humans doesn't imply in any sort of way that they much be the cause of catastrophic global warming:)

Heck, astrology relies heavily on the orbits of the planets, and that's falsifiable too - but you'll never find a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis for astrology, now will

Global warming certainly qualifies by any realistic definition of a hypothesis. You might disagree with the hypothesis, but it's at least as falsifiable as Evolution.

Contributed to, at least in part, by human activity, a steady increase in global average temperature will have negative effects on the environment and human society at large.

It's possible that you're talking about some ridiculous exaggeration of that ("OMG we're all gonna burn up in flames because Tom's car only gets 12 MPG!!"), but GW is a pretty clear statement that has plenty of measurable criteria. You can be pedantic and demand exact definitions for human contribution, temperature increase, and whether negative effects are caused by the former, but all are still clearly testable.

It's most definitely science. Much of the disagreement about it comes on disputing the validity of data acquired and how it's interpreted. However, the fact that data is being acquired and interpreted, and the fact that it is under scrutiny, is what makes the entire process scientific and worthwhile in the first place.

Call their bluff; announce an intent to entertain offers from other states to move their entire institutions, lock, stock, and intellectuals due to their services no longer being required by the state.

Students who are unable to argue against those who attempt to oppose evolution on an argumentative basis are unlikely to ever go anywhere in the scientific community anyways. In other words, if the bill allows teachers to point out the arguments against evolution, and allows the students the freedom to argue against the teacher for those arguments freely, then I do not see it as being a problem. However, in reality most teachers will just fail or severely down-grade students who disagree with them, and if the bill does not include provisions to prevent that (which I doubt it does) then it is a terrible idea.

Fill disclosure: I am religious, and I do believe evolution is a valid and highly probably scientific hypothesis (I don't want to say I "believe in" it, because it isn't a matter of faith, it is a matter of reason). The two things in no way contradict each other and anyone who claims they do doesn't know what they're talking about (most probably, doesn't know anything about either religion or science and their respective fields).

Arguing with someone who chooses to disregard science is not a skill indicative of scientific aptitude. You can apply all of the logic and evidence with the best imaginable skill, but it still doesn't work when the teacher dismisses all of the evidence as a ruse by Satan, and finds no logical fault in an omnipotent and heavy-handed God whose existence is impossible to verify. You can't argue science with these people until after you convince them that they are crazy.

Let's start teaching holocaust denial in history class then. It's a "controversy" too, right? And any lessons that touch on recent events should also teach the "controversy" about 9/11 being an inside job. Chemistry lessons should be augmented by alchemy.

If all alternative points of view (including the batshit insane ones) are equally valid, you have to.

They already do: it's referred to as "Manifest Destiny," and is the flimsy justification given to kids regarding the attempted genocide of the native American people. I'm sure someone will want to attempt to argue that point, but when you look at the facts objectively it becomes obvious the colonial settlers intentionally attempted to systematically wipe out an entire nation of people, in an effort to steal the native's land./rant

Sometimes it seems there are more American Holocaust deniers here, than European Holocaust deniers in all the world.

For instance, in Texas in history we need to teach the controversy of the Alamo. Have the kids research and debate if the heros of the Alamo were in fact primarily concerned with keeping slaver in the nation of texas, a basic right that would have taken away if Mexico's liberal no slavery policy were allowed to prevail.

There are many examples of this. In world history rather than focusing on wars, we could include the faith based authoritarian regimes and ask if faith has been used to create the oppress more than used to help the oppressed. Again, not take sides. Just have student read about the controversy in order to develop students better at problem solving.

We could do the same thing in literature, reading books that teach the controversy of religion, democracy, and capitalism.

My problem with teaching the controversy is that if I ask a christian why we have public school prayer when the bible prohibits it, they don't want to take about that controversy. So why are we taking about evolution when there is really nothing in the bible, or at the Christian testament, that prevents it from validity. Of course if they really wanted to pursue a controversy, they would be working on disavowing the trinity [miguelservet.org], something that no good protest, only the modern Catholics who follow the Council of Niceae, should believe.

It's too bad they didn't do this properly. There ARE controversies in evolutionary theory. They're not controversies in whether or not evolution works, but there IS disagreement in the specific mechanisms of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium or phyletic gradualism? Duke it out! Teach those controversies!

Oh wait, I guess I'm asking for science to be taught in science class. My bad.

is manufactured. It's that some religious extremists in this country can't deal with the fact that the reality that hard science is discovering and exploring doesn't exactly match their creation myth of choice, and keep stirring the s*** because they're still trying to stuff that genie back in the bottle long after it's way too late.

There's only a "controversy" because they keep insisting it's "controversial" as a pretext to keep their foot in the door. And the fact is, creationism is not science, at best it's Bible-flavored pseudoscience that's already decided its conclusions and merely cherry-picks data to support those conclusions.. which is actually the opposite of science..

It essentially makes an information theoretic argument that some unspecified designer may need to be invoked to better explain modern observations of biological complexity. That is, they claim (but I don't see the evidence) that certain biological configurations are better or more easily explained or explainable at all if we assume that there was some intent behind some aspect of resulting organisms. I skimmed the article, but I didn't notice it saying anything at all about irreducible complexity. It simply mentions that some things have much too high of an information content to be plausibly the result of evolution according to completely natural processes.

As I see it, the assumption that the governing processes are entirely natural is simpler, because it does not invoke the requirement for some external influence. They also make no claims in regard to the nature of these outside influences. Moreover, evolutionary theory doesn't preclude that some aliens or something may have had influence. It simply declines to explain in those terms, because there's no difference between an intelligent alien tweaking things in some imperceptible way versus some extra radiation causing some mutations and some specific ecological niche favoring certain traits. They seem to be implying that they can CALCULATE that certain biological complexity is extremely unlikely given our basic understanding of mutation and selection. But then again, everything we observe is a priori extremely improbable it's just that we have inordinate amounts of time and space for those improbable events to become probable, and we have evidence of the time scale from geology. We don't, however, have any direct evidence that there was anything other than planet-local natural influences behind evolution, and it's hard to define what exactly is and is not "natural."

So, is this ID article just being vague? Or are they making some interesting point? I don't just want to dismiss it as creationist dogma. I think that an information theoretic analysis is warranted. I just don't trust their understanding of the science or their underlying motivations.

The whole thing comes down to politics. School boards are elected. Higher up politicians distribute funds to school boards. There are some fairly vocal individuals who may or may not represent the majority but have the ability to stir up powerful emotions among the electorate.

Proper democracy requires an educated informed electorate to function correctly. Proper democracy does not provide a way to bootstrap the system where the fundamental requirements are lacking.

In retrospect, can't we give them the option of succession? The new state of Northern Mexico would admittedly, increase border problems, but think of the tax savings! (http://www.flapolitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3311)

Regardless, I don't see what is wrong in teaching kids both evolution and the evidence for or against it, and creationism and the evidence for or against it. People need to be encouraged to reason not just memorize whichever view we decide is "right" and cram down their throats.

That's the whole point there *is* no evidence for or against Creationism - it's a made up story based on a work of fiction. It's not a scientific hypothesis that can be debated. It's a set of beliefs. Just like I believe there's an invisible pink unicorn in my garage. Shut up, there totally is! Prove that there isn't! You just have to take my word for it and believe that it is there.

The pros and cons of the theory of evolution, however (and the wider discussion about the Scientific Method) are suitable topi

If you (or anyone, for that matter) have a valid hypothesis worth study, then by all means bring it up! Any real scientist worth their salt would jump at the opportunity to explore a heretofore unknown theory.

However, if your entire scientific platform boils down to "God did it, now stop asking questions," well, you might as well join Santorum on his dinosaur and ride off into the sunset.

Why would you need a new vaccine? It's not like the genetic makeup of viruses can change over time through a process of natural selection. This is the same reason why we didn't need to invent any new antibiotics after penicillin.